


Nothing Good Ever Happens After 9pm

by canadianhannah, loutmouth



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I wrote this after the first time I heard Barriers, Idk I wasn't even gonna post this but here we go, It's inspired by Great Party and 24k Lush, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 03:23:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20807729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadianhannah/pseuds/canadianhannah, https://archiveofourown.org/users/loutmouth/pseuds/loutmouth





	Nothing Good Ever Happens After 9pm

“Nothing good ever happens after 9pm,” I say – not to him, though. It is almost as if my lips will the words into being, the power of intention wrenching them from my tongue, dangling the sentence before my eyes where it swings, like a pendulum, counting the heartbeats between my final breath and the one he takes before he speaks.  
“Well, it’s not 9 yet. We’ve still got fifteen minutes of conversation before-,” he waves a hand, “before whatever happens at 9. Do you know what it is I’m supposed to be wary of?”  
There’s a note of mocking in his tone, his eyes falling on me lazily, a tedious smile on his lips. I shrug, using the motion as an excuse to let my eyes fall. My hands are sweating, and I hate it; I know that when I glance up again, it’s going to turn my stomach, and I’m going to feel that familiar rush of dizziness that I can’t stand.  
“Vampires,” I mumble uselessly. He grins – I don’t even need to look up to see it – and sits on the step beside me, hands tapping absently at his jean-clad knees. The muffled sounds of the party pulse from behind us, threatening to crash through the wooden door and sweep us back into the wave of drunken merriment I’d intentionally tried to avoid.  
“What are you doing out here?” I ask, finally turning to look at him. He’s not looking at me, eyes scanning the street in front of us, as if the night sky held an equation, as if the dense summer air concealed some knowledge he couldn’t quite reach.  
“Saw you leave. You looked… sad,” he admitted, eyes flicking to mine for a second as he spoke. I shouldn’t be surprised that he cares, but I am. Loving him is like loving the sky; sometimes he is the sun on my cheeks, but when he rains, it pours.  
“I’m not sad, it’s okay. I’m just…sort of pensive, I guess…if that’s the word I wanna use-,”  
I pause for a moment, then nod, “yeah. Pensive. I’m thinking.”  
“Do I wanna know what you’re thinking about?” he asks. He’s staring at me intensely, and I tilt his head – I want his gaze to scrape my cheekbone, to stay away from my eyes for fear of the grey haze that will block the stars from my view.  
“Uh, I mean. How’s your telekinesis?”  
“You mean telepathy. And it’s just fine,” he murmurs. His fingertips are tapping harder, their calloused surface thudding dully on his jeans.  
“So you know what’s up. You-,” I bite my lip as I sigh, watching my resolve roll out from me in faint pink flumes, “you know that this is…hard for me.” The words have barely left my mouth before he’s groaning, his hands clenching as they rest on his thighs.  
“It’s not, though,” he snaps. His demeanour’s changed, the clouds have rolled in above his brow, but it’s my eyes that are feeling the oncoming rain storm; they’re already hazy with it, even before the thunder has boomed from his chest, his teeth not yet rattled by his verbal hurricane, “it’s not as hard as you’re making it. You just want too much from me. I’ve told you-  
“You’ve lied to me,” I counter. My voice is trembling and I hate it, I feel shame like a punch in my throat. He seems taken aback, but not surprised. His eyes are ashen, cheekbones seeming sharper, suddenly, his lips downturned as he looks at me with absolute passivity.  
“And you? You’ve told nothing but the truth?” he retorts, his tone cold, like sharp ice being pressed into my sternum  
“I only lied about things I knew would scare you,”  
“You shouldn’t have bothered. You don’t scare me.”  
The words don’t relieve me at all – he’s telling me that he doesn’t care enough to be afraid. As the storm rages in the space between us, as his eyes are blacked out by the darkened clouds, my subconscious waves a single thought in front of me – I am afraid of him. He could create an ocean just to drown me in it; and he would, if I pushed him any further. My resolve breaks and my body slumps; I am snapped in two, my intestines folded perfectly atop each other. I’m being compressed, and I long for it – I no longer want to be the same size as him; I want to slip beneath his notice.  
The dizziness brings silence, and I welcome it. My lips fold into each other and cease to exist, and I wait until I am sucked into the same nothingness. 

“What colour would you say the stars are?” he asks. His voice is raspy, like the sound of a leaf underfoot. Perhaps he felt the rain too, after all; perhaps the water filled his mouth as it now fills mine. I am afraid to part my lips, in case the reservoir beneath my tongue spills over. I don’t have to speak – he answers himself.  
“Everyone says they’re gold, but they’re not. They’re sort of…white,” he muses. I swallow the ocean back into my stomach, wincing as the sharp corners of the coral reef scrape the back of my tongue and block my already swollen throat.  
“We’ll never know, for sure. ‘Cause they’re…they’re really far,” I murmur, “they’re like, already dead. So I guess they’re nothing-coloured.”  
He laughs, and I take the sound for what it is – he forgives me, for whatever sin I committed against him  
“You’re kind of nothing coloured too.”  
It’s not a compliment, but he says it as if it is. I let the words wash over me, pulling the debris from my eyes and throat so I can speak again.  
“I’m sorry.”  
He shakes his head, hand finding mine in the darkness between our almost-touching legs. He doesn’t hold it, just lets his fingers rest against my palm.  
“Don’t be. I didn’t mean to get so mad, I just…there’s not much I can do about it, you know? The cards have been dealt, and that’s that. No…reshuffle. No bribing the banker. Just take your cards and play the game.”  
“I know.” He draws his hand away, but looks at me fondly, his lips tugging upwards.  
“Do you?” he asks softly. I nod, hands rubbing over my legs.  
“Yes. I think so. I’m just…what happens after all of this? When everything’s over, and you’re not here, and I have to….grow up and forget it all?”  
“That’s not a question.”  
“I know. The question I guess is…how do I know? When do I know that it’s done? Will you tell me?” I look up at him with misguided trust, and I wonder if my eyes are golden, or if they’re nothing coloured. I think I’m only golden until he looks at me.  
“There’s nothing to tell. Nothing’s ending. The things that exist right now will always exist.”  
“Only in theory,” I interject. He arches an eyebrow, but looks more amused than irritated.  
“In theory, yes. But the end of the road is another three highways away. I can’t see it from where I’m standing, even if I climb onto the roof. It’s miles and miles,” he assures me. He’s lying, but I appreciate the words anyway.  
“And you’ll tell me when it’s over?” I ask again. He doesn’t speak, but his hand finally slides into mine, fingers fitting into gaps in my skin I didn’t know I had. The stars twinkle above my forehead, and they’re golden, and we’re golden, and the world sits in Midas’ palm until we all glisten with the soft glow of fatalism.


End file.
